A new video illustrating how Taiga had been involved in match-fixing and betting with a group of Russians has surfaced.
Tommy "Taiga" Le has had his share of ups and downs in his Dota 2 career over the last seven years. The Norwegian-based Vietnamese player created a bright and shining reputation in and out of the game that followed him around for the bulk of his career. Family first. Positive. Wholesome. These were some of the ways he had often been described.
But in the last several months, a different light was cast on the famed player that overshadowed his sparkle.
Less than a year ago Taiga had been missing for the first three OG matches of the final tour in the Dota Pro Circuit citing personal issues.
At that time rumors and accusations about his involvement in match-fixing and suspicious betting activity began to circulate, originated by Valve-banned player, Yaroslav “Limitless” Parshin who claimed Taiga was “giving away first bloods”. Former Virtus.pro coach Arsenii “ArsZeeqq” Usov also partially confirmed it.
It was a few months later that Taiga went public with his struggle with his gambling addiction.
Now, a new video has surfaced that aims to illustrate how Taiga was involved in match-fixing at that time, placing bets with Russian Matchfixers and his spiral downward from insider info to throwing ‘firstblood’ and incurring large debts.
While it is rather incriminating, it is important to note that these incidents have been reported to ESL and Valve previously when Taiga first came under suspicion as indicated by Ceb in this interview HERE.
At this time Taiga is playing competitively in South America for Leviatán and at this time there has been no official word from the organization, Taiga or Valve regarding any new consequences or investigations.
Prior Match-fixing, Cheating and Bans
One year ago during the Chinese Division I DPC 2023 Winter Tour, Team Knights were accused of match-fixing or some other ‘foul play’. And then, during the last week of league play in the DPC Winter Tour Team Knights went 0:2 against EHOME. At that time Vitalii "v1lat" Volochai claimed that the match was fixed based on the information he received from his partners at GG.Bet and other fans reported abnormal betting behavior. While it was reported at the time, it took after the Lima Major for both EHOME and Team Knights to receive their lifetime bans.
That was two weeks before in the biggest ban wave in Dota 2, Valve banned over 40,000 Dota 2 players for using third-party software that gave them an advantage in the game.
According to Valve, the third-party software used by cheaters was accessing information used internally by the Dota client that wasn’t visible during normal gameplay, giving the cheater an unfair advantage.”
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Three months prior to that PGL released a list of ten Dota 2 players that have just been permanently banned by Valve for account sharing and impersonating other players.
Among the ten CIS players included, Virtus.pro’s carry player, Kamil “Koma`” Biktimirov. Koma` was registered and set to begin playing under the VP banner for the DPC season.
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Ten months ago a total of 10 Southeast Asia players received a lifetime ban from Valve-sanctioned tournaments for match-fixing and for playing Dota Pro Circuit qualifiers on multiple accounts for more than one team, including well-established Malaysian players Cheng "vtFαded" Jia Hao and Lai "AhJit" Jay Son.
- Read vtFaded and AhJit receive lifetime bans from Valve along with all players of Team Orca and Apex
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March 2015 marked the first time Valve issued a lifetime ban to a Dota 2 player, team, or organization from their events.
Since then, more players have received lifetime or 'indefinite' bans from Valve-sanctioned events. Ultimately ending their careers, their dreams coming to a full stop.
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